A: The only sure way I know to eliminate brown garden snails from California gardens is with a time machine. You'd need to arrive in Oakland by the mid-1850s, so you'll have time to locate one A. Delmas before he let them loose in his garden around 1859. He thought California citizens would be eternally grateful that he introduced delicious escargot. Boy, was he wrong!

I think we're stuck with snails, but you don't have to let them eat your garden. With some knowledge and a smart strategy you can reduce their numbers so much that damage is an occasional and small-scale problem.

The best time to reduce snail populations is now, in spring, before the summer breeding season. When weather is warm, each snail, which is both male and female, lays up to 80 eggs a month. By late summer, there are many small snails. These eat more for their body weight than adults, and unlike adults, often spend night and day on plant leaves. Because they rarely go to the ground, they are less likely to encounter snail bait that is placed there.

A grand daytime hunt at the beginning of your campaign will have great rewards. Search to find out where they hide in the daytime. This could be amid garden debris (pots, boards and the like), against walls and fences that are hidden by plants, or on the undersides of smooth leaves. Typical favorites are agapanthus and nasturtium.

Night hunts will help further reduce the snail population in your garden. If you go out with a flashlight after 10 p.m., or before dawn if you are an early riser, you will find many that you missed in the daytime. Repeat for two to three nights until the catch drops off dramatically.

After you have carried out a big daytime hunt, some cleanup and hiding place removal, and a couple of night hunts, you are ready to put out some snail bait and think about traps or barrier methods.

The bait I recommend is Sluggo. It's approved for use by organic farmers. Its active ingredient, iron phosphate, poisons snails and slugs, but its breakdown products are just fertilizers.

Note that the Sluggo package says it's safe to use around dogs. I'm sure this is true if used as directed, meaning scattered very thinly. Do read the directions. Excess iron is toxic to dogs, and some have been poisoned by eating large amounts of the bait. Though Sluggo Plus is also approved for organic farmers, it contains spinosin, which is more toxic to pets and wildlife.

Altogether avoid any iron phosphate baits that contain EDTA. They're no more effective at killing snails and slugs than plain iron phosphate, but are more toxic to earthworms and pets.